In a recent Netflix comedy special, comedian Tom Segura got into some hot water with a lot of people when he joked that the word "retarded" should be brought back into the public vocabulary, joking that he feels nostalgia for the good old days when people could use the word freely. Needless to say, there are a lot of people who are not happy with Segura. The Special Olympics posted a statement condemning the joke, with many in the disabled community calling for Netflix to take down the comedy special, calling it "hate speech".

Now, I watched that special when it came out, before all of the backlash and the hate, and if I'm going to be completely honest, I thought that Segura was very funny, even the joke that everyone is getting so pissed off about. Was the joke going to be offensive to some? Of course. I don't think there is anything that anyone could say that isn't offensive to at least someone in the world. If I tweeted "good morning" I swear to god someone would reply "maybe in your privileged, straight, white, cisgender world, Eric!". Besides, it's a joke. If you're watching a comedy special and taking everything being said seriously, you're doing it wrong and you need to grow a new funny bone.

Apart from that, what I really want to focus on is how many people and groups have started using the term "hate speech". The definition of hate speech if you look it up (which I am going to assume that many of those outraged did not) is speaking with the intent to offend or hurt a group, usually based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. However, this is not what those crying hate speeches are defining it as. As far as I can tell, when they say hate speech, they don't really care whether or not the intent of the words used was to hurt or disparage a group. All they really care about is the words that were said, regardless of context.

This right here is why I am against making hate speech illegal. While there are many things that people can say that really are awful and should not be said under any circumstance, there are also many words and phrases that offend people that are not harmful in any way to anyone. Additionally, when writing a law about hate speech, you would somehow have to figure out how to prove intent to offend or hurt, but regardless, should it really be illegal for one person to offend another person?

That is the question that this entire debate hinges on. If, like many others, you say that it should be illegal, then anything that offends you, any new, pioneering words or ideas that you don't like, can be punishable. Imagine if a law like that was in place thirty or forty years ago during the Civil Rights Movement, or the Gay Rights Movement, or the Feminist Movement. How many activists who were completely in the right be punished or jailed under such a law? Think about that the next time you see a comedy special and cry hate speech.